On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:45:48 -0600, Tim Chase <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Multi-character mappings also have a slight delay in them, so in
> the preceeding example, after I type "HELI", there's a slight
> pause while Vim sees if I am going to type "U", or if I type
> something else, so it knows how to behave.
>
> Things get slightly more complex if you're writing code-block
> expansions such as wanting "IF" to expand to
>
> if (|) {
> } else {
> }
>
> and put the cursor where the "|" is. It involves an expansion
> (and thus suggests an :iab for the expansion) but also involves
> moving the cursor to a particular position. I've not had luck
> doing those as :iab expansions, so I resort to mappings...usually
> prefixing them with an infrequently used character such as
> control+G or a tilde as fits.
Abbreviations don't have the delay that mappings do, but they do mean
that Vim must wait until the character after the abbreviation has been
typed so it can distinguish between "IF " and "IFFY", only expanding
the abbreviation in the first case.
I've never made much use of abbreviations. I did try using them back
when I first started using vi but I found that I had to choose arcane
abbreviation sequences in order to avoid expansions when I didn't want
them, and it eventually dawned on me that it was taking me longer to
recall the correct abbreviation than it would have taken to type out
the abbreviated phrase in full. So now I mainly use maps and function
keys for insert-time replacements.
One situation in which abbreviations work well is if you're writing
text and the house style is to write (say) "National Aeronautics and
Space Administration" in full rather than "NASA". They're also useful
for fixing common typing errors: I often type "adminsitration" because
after being left out of the action for three letters my left hand gets
impatient and bounces off the s early to give it more time to head
t-wards, so an abbreviation to replace that with what I intended to
type is useful.
--
Matthew Winn
